Traditional WH vs Tankless WH

[TnHiker]

Looking for input on the tankless water heaters. Considering a trade for a new Jayco that has a tankless water heater. Please share any experience you have with the tankless water heaters.

[Rustysocket]

There are a handful of people who swear by them. There are a lot of people who swear at them.

Do a search. It's a common topic.

[MikeThompson]

We have a 2018 Precept wth the Truma tankless heater and we absolutely love it. Haven't had any of the problems that I heard about with the Girard that Jayco used for a few years. My only complaint is that Jayco installed the basic unit which does not have freeze protection. We went to the Truma service center in Florida and had the upgrade kit installed.

[norty1]

https://www.jaycoowners.com/forums/f...tml#post585437

In reading of owners experiences, the brand of tankless seems to be the key. The early ones out had problems with recognizing water flow resulting in spotty hot water.
The newer brands seem to make everyone happy.

[Jagiven]

Originally Posted by Rustysocket

There are a handful of people who swear by them. There are a lot of people who swear at them.

Do a search. It's a common topic.

I would fully agree with Rusty! I have only ever had a 6 gallon tank in any TT I have owned, rented, borrowed.

I do have a tankless at home, and love it. But there was a steep learning curve to go with it. What I found it is terrible if you turn on and off the hot water, such as rinsing dishes. The burner fan must purge any potential gas before firing, so you get a slug of cold water every time you turn on a faucet. At home for example while doing dishes, I leave he hot faucet valve partially open to keep hot water flowing, hence I waste a bit of water.

IF you stay at a full hook up site, with the grey tank valve open, I would not see an issue with it. But I almost never have a full hookup site, so it would be annoying, as I have to conserve water usage, so I do not have to make a few extra trips to the dumping station while wasting water, to get constant hot water to the kitchen faucet.

[t18skyguy]

If you mean new as in 2017 or 2018, it should work just fine, but you need to understand how the system works. You set the water temperature on the thermostat to 105 degrees(works good 4 me), then you turn on only the hot water full blast no cold water. Do not turn it on and off. Before you do this though, pick up a Rinaldo adjustable water pressure gauge from Amazon. Adjust the pressure outside the rig to 60 PSI. If you don't want to fill up your grey tank, get one of those caps with a hose bib built in and open the grey valve and let it drain down the sewer with a hose attached. I have had very nice long showers with this method.

[Jday7757]

We had a 2008 Melbourne with the standard 6-gallon traditional water heater for 9 years. This summer we decided to upgrade to a class A and decided that we really wanted a 2017 Precept 31UL. It was almost the perfect motorhome for my wife and I but almost didn’t buy it because my wife was dead set against the tankless war we heater. As you might know, the tankless water heater is standard onour model and a regular one is not even an option. She had heard so many bad stories about them. Since other than that it was perfect for us I promised her that if she really didn’t like the tankless water heater we would replace it with a standard one.

I did my research and learned all the tricks, especially figuring out the temperature you want and turn on the hot water only all the way. The bottom line is that by the end of our first trip with the Precept, the tankless water heater was my wife’s favorite feature of the motorhome.

As mentioned by someone else, there were a lot of problems with earlier models but the 3rd generation Gerard that is on ou Precept is great.

[glamisbound]

Easy answer: If you are dry camping, you will probably not like it. It wastes too much water. If you are hooked up, like others have said above, and listen to advise on how to properly use it, you will probably like it.

[NC Roamer]

Originally Posted by glamisbound

Easy answer: If you are dry camping, you will probably not like it. It wastes too much water. If you are hooked up, like others have said above, and listen to advise on how to properly use it, you will probably like it.

Our experience precisely. Our Greyhawk came with the Girard tankless. After 18 months of aggravation our dealer replaced it with a Suburban 6-gallon model. We’ve had zero issues with it.

[pconroy]

Originally Posted by glamisbound

Easy answer: If you are dry camping, you will probably not like it. It wastes too much water. If you are hooked up, like others have said above, and listen to advise on how to properly use it, you will probably like it.

I agree.

We're in the handful of people who've come to grips with our Girard tankless. If it dies, I'll replace it with another tankless (different brand).

[Flipside]

Which brand?

[edatlanta]

I still don't see why I would consider a tankless heater regardless of brand or if they work or not. I heat my water with park electricity not my propane.

[norty1]

Ed, It's called progress. Phooey. I am one that does not want the latest and greatest nothing until someone else has found all the bugs in many products that are coming into use and are not thoroughly tested. I am willing to wait until they get the bugs out of them.

Guess that's why I waited until the 4s to get a smartphone, Then waited until the i7 for the next one.

That's why they call us the Greatest Generation!

[Jday7757]

Originally Posted by edatlanta

I still don't see why I would consider a tankless heater regardless of brand or if they work or not. I heat my water with park electricity not my propane.

The biggest advantage of the tankless water heater is that you don’t have to worry about running out of hot water or wait several minutes for the water to heat up. This is especially useful for families that need to be able to take several showers. For us, even though it’s just m6 wife and me, my wife loves to take long, hot showers (15+ minutes) and then I can get my shower right after her without waiting for the water to heat up again.

As I said in an earlier response above, the tankless water heater was what almost kept my wife from agreeing on the Precept, but now it’s her favorite feature.

[Crossingover]

Like them both, have tankless now but miss the dual fuel choice the tanked appliance offers.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[PipeFighter]

Just my .02 here but I have not seen this mentioned. One thing that On Demand water heaters require more so than the stand by type is yearly maintenance in the form of chemically flushing. Since most RV's might not be used daily 365 like a home water heater they might not need maintenance on a yearly schedule but I'd go with the MFR's recommendation. Water chemistry has to be taken into account also (soft vs hard). There are plenty of videos on this subject on YouTube. I'll attach one from one of the big guys out there. Hope this helps those that have them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-ts7XuvS48

[PipeFighter]

Just my .02 here but I have not seen this mentioned. One thing that On Demand water heaters require more so than the stand by type is yearly maintenance in the form of chemically flushing. Since most RV's might not be used daily 365 like a home water heater they might not need maintenance on a yearly schedule but I'd go with the MFR's recommendation. Water chemistry has to be taken into account also (soft vs hard). There are plenty of videos on this subject on YouTube. I'll attach one from one of the big guys out there. Hope this helps those that have them. If the link is not allowed then please let me know. I didn't see it in the TOS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-ts7XuvS48

.

[upacrick]

Originally Posted by pconroy

I agree.

We're in the handful of people who've come to grips with our Girard tankless. If it dies, I'll replace it with another tankless (different brand).

Hello... we have a 2016 Precept 31UL... and have been back to the factory four times with multiple issues that i will not bore you with here... we are still dealing with the tankless water heater... we hate it. We are looking into replacing it. Did you replace it with a pilot or auto ignition? Where did you have it done and approximately how much did it cost? Thank you for any help in this matter... if you want to talk to me, my phone number is... 215-630-5072.

Thanks again,

Marty

[Les7h]

We replaced the junk Girard with the Truma and cured 100% of our many, many complaints - have your dealer install as part of the purchase - we love the tankless Truma - we don't have to check the temperature before doing dishes or taking a shower ( we couldn't use the Girard below 50 degrees )

[blujay40]

Sorry for the length, but like Mike, Les, and many others have posted online, if your considering going with a tankless heater, you really need to consider the Truma AquaGo Comfort model.

It is heads and shoulders above the others currently on the market and unless you have actually used one, it's not fair to lump the Truma in with the other inferior tankless units.

We had a Girard, which like many of the other tankless heaters on the market, had a LOT of quirks to work around to get satisfactory operation and really didn't work well when trying to conserve water. The Truma has resolved every single complaint we had about the Girard and operates just like a tanked unit in the real world. The only thing I can think of that the Truma cannot do is run on electric only when you have shore power.

No more worrying about changing the temp on the control panel to get the temp you want because the Truma is set at a fixed 120 degrees and due to it's minimal flow requirements (about .3 gal/min), you can mix cold with hot at the faucet just like at home or get hot water at a trickle.

It has a much higher, and variable rate burner that can handle input water temps cold and warm. And if you run the unit in it's normal mode (vs. Eco mode), or turn it to normal mode just before use, it keeps the water in the mixing tank at approx. 101 degrees at all times so when you first turn on the hot water, you get that water first while the burner heats up new incoming water which mitigates how much water you will waste while waiting for the warm/hot water to reach the faucet/shower head. The mixing tank also mitigates the cold water sandwich you get with the others when turning the water off and on again, like when taking a navy shower or doing dishes.

Winterization? Bypass the unit and pull out the built in drain trough that keeps the water from running down the side of your rig, to empty the mixing tank. That's it.

And as for descaling? The comfort model has a mode just for that and will tell you when it's time to descale. Then you simply open the drain trough, insert a tablet (purchased from Truma) into the unit, close the drain, turn the switch inside to clean, and let it do it's thing. Once completed in a couple of hours, you simply flush the lines and put the unit back to it's normal operation setting. Couldn't be any easier.

But above everything else, I guess the most telling approval I can possibly give is that although the DW raised an eyebrow when I first told her of the change from the Girard to the Truma, she is now a total convert and gives it her "5 star approval" which trust me, is NOT easy to get!